Virtual OSonOS: A Worldwide Open Learning Event

Inviting Community, Sharing Learnings, Evolving Practice
Everywhere, July 8-11th or 9-12th (depending on where you are)

We have learned so much about bringing people together. We have imagined, invited, and unleashed. We are agile and appreciative, artful and improvisational. Our media is social, our networks are linked, and upstart movements can have national and international effects. We mix the newest technologies and the oldest human patterns. We work on peace AND high performance, passion and purpose, sharing and storytelling. We focus on what’s working, why it works, and how we can make more of it.

So what? And now what? The world is under pressure, in every time zone, maybe like never before – socially, politically, economically, environmentally, spiritually. Everywhere, complexity, diversity, real and potential conflict, and urgent needs are more obvious than ever. What is the opportunity here? What is our responsibility? What are the possibilities – and the practices that are working now – where you are?

A Virtual Open Space on (All Kinds of) Open Space

What are you learning about creating what you want in the world – in organizations and markets, communities and families, body and mind? What is your practice and what is it becoming? What can we learn and do now together to make a difference in your work? And what could happen if we work and learn together, all around the world, all at once, even for just a few days? This is what we want to find out, in a four-day virtual conference experiment in world-around self-organization.

Anyone with a good head and a good heart, actively engaged in bringing people together to meet the large and small challenges of our time, is invited to join in. We want to extend and expand the decades-old tradition of the Open Space on Open Space (OSonOS) conferences, in this World-Around, Virtual, Video Open Space onAll Kinds of Practices that Open Space – VOSonOS for short. It’s about inviting and renewing connections, sharing learnings and insights, and evolving practice(s), everywhere.

How Will It Work?

We will use QiqoChat.com to create our agenda, host (most of) our breakout conversations in live video galleries, and capture our notes on Qiqo’s virtual flip charts. During waking hours in your timezone, you can join any of two opening plenaries, many different breakout sessions and two closing plenary sessions. Stay up late or get up early for more, if you like!

Day 1: Three opening sessions, 8 hours apart, each one followed immediately by a 2-hour round of breakout conversations

Day 3: Six more 2-hour rounds of breakout sessions, starting every 4 hours

Day 4: Three closing circles, starting 8 hours apart.

Our full conference schedule will be filled with discussion topics, and stay available for editing in a global community bulletin board, viewable at QiqoChat. The QiqoChat platform will let us move ourselves between breakout circles and other meeting places. We will be able to convene breakouts via Skype, Zoom and other platforms, or even in-person gatherings in coffee shops, if you like. And of course, you’ll focus on the issues and areas of practice that are most important to you.

How to Register?

Please register in advance at QiqoChat for this grand experiment, including a suggested $20 contribution toward direct conference hosting costs. Then, please share this invitation with friends and colleagues you would like to have join us!

Tech Notes: All participants will be able to participate by listening and/or viewing live sessions at QiqoChat. You can use your phone or computer microphone for audio connection (to speak). To share your video (be seen), please use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or Internet Explorer 10+. Safari is not yet compatible.

Add a brief comment to add your own voice to this invitation, share something about what you want this to be, why you think this matters, or anything else you’d like to say to anyone joining or thinking about joining this experiment. AND THEN… Register at QiqoChat, spread the word, bring friends, and add spirit!

12 thoughts on “

Virtual OSonOS: A Worldwide Open Learning Event

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Those who dream big, impossible dream–and then figure out how to make them happen–are my kind of people! I’m looking forward to connecting with old friends and meeting lots of new ones. And to learning more about how to meet in an intimate space across miles and time zones. And to consider how to connect this powerful energy with the needs of this world.

So nice to reconnect with you, Joelle, and with so many others old and new open spacers and friends…

And thanks Michael Herman for making this dream come true. As you have observed in your kind personal invitation a vOSonOS is something I have been dreaming for years – and have participated from a distance at as many as I have been able, using the technologies available in each moment – when the organizers of many WOSonOS have really tried to make that possible.

Wonderful to connect in real time with people from all over our globe who are working to create a better World. I actually think that every time we open up space for people to get into genuine contact with themselves and others – we contribute to the creation of a better World. So it sure is important work we do!
I’ve been using and spreading OST for the last 15 years and things are improving…at the same time there is a loooooong way left to go in all kind of organizations if participation and shared leadership is to become the norm.
So let’s come together and learn, inspire each other to continue our work, because we ain’t giving up!
Looking forward!/Thomas

I love this invitation, and it strongly echoes a keen sensing that I’m hearing from many other colleagues these days.
Most of all though, I’m drawn to this VOsonOS for the chance to be with you all, plus all the friends and colleagues all over the world whom we’ll be inviting to participate.

I have just registered and poked around QiqoChat – it’s a really beautiful platform/place, and I’m finding it very easy to use so far.

Thank you, Michael, and Lucas and Tricia, and looking forward to being with you all in July.

Like a little kid counting the days until summer vacation, with wonder, delight and sheer joy, I am so looking forward to this trailblazing event. I feel a deep gratitude to the organizers (Michael, Lucas, Tricia, others) and all who will show up, friends, colleagues and strangers united in Open Space and the call that beckons us to be there. I imagine myself gazing at the faces around our virtual global circle, feeling the quiet presence of each of us, deeply connected.
Already I smile as I see the names of those who will be there wishing time to stand still for those 4 days so we can savor each moment. Must we sleep, must we eat 🙂
Thank you so much for this!
Suzanne

I have been sitting on the side of the pool for years now, daydreaming that I may, one day, find the time to see OST in action and learn how to help my clients with this toolset / mindset. What a gift to have this worldwide event — thank you, organizers, each of you, for making this so accessible and affordable. I look forward to learning, sharing and having my world rocked!
All the best, Gordon

The part I’m looking forward to most is being able to meet members of the Open Space community through audio and/or video. I have enjoyed reading many insightful posts over the years on the OS List, and this will help me get to know many folks on that list in a more personal and complementary way.

G’day All
Looking forward to meeting and greeting you.
With no expectations and delicious anticipations.
Not least in making firm friends, as has happened in all of the 5 WOSonOS in which I have been privileged to participate. Starting with Monterey, CA in 1998 and most recent in St Petersburg, FL , in 2013.
From way Downunder.
Go well
Alan

Glad to see so many old friends and to know that I will make a lot of new ones, and learn a lot in the process. [Rephrasing a title from Harrison: the business of life is learning!]
And now let me make my co-convener invitation in my native language, Portuguese!

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